Dalriada car wash

Una Culkin

This Saturday (6 June) Dalriada School are holding a sponsored car wash at the American Car Wash Centre, Market Street, Ballymoney.

The owner, Rachel Hall, of the car wash is kindly providing the labour and facilities entirely free of charge and all proceeds will go towards the Nepal disaster appeal.

During the day the Best Buddies Group of young pupils will also be providing tea, coffee and buns while customers wait for their car to receive the five star treatment. All proceeds from catering will go towards the Best Buddies project in Ballymoney.

The vision of Best Buddies is to educate students, employers and communities about the needs and abilities of people with learning disabilities. The aim is to match individuals with learning disabilities with their non-disabled peers in one to one firendships. The pairs, when matched undertake to make contact with each other once a week by phone, email, letter etc.

They also meet twice a month for an activity they both enjoy, i.e. going to the cinema, visiting a local place of interest, participating or attending a sport event, shopping, going to McDonald’s etc. The Ballymoney group has a number of pairings already in place and all the young people are really enjoying and benefitting from the programme.

A spokeperson commented: “This fundraising event will give us the opportunity to provide what we do and also raise much needed funds to allow the programme to take place. We are extremely grateful to the American Car Wash for allowing us this opportunity”.

Headmaster, Tom Skelton commented, “We are delighted that local business such as this is providing the car wash completely free of charge and we appreciate this generous offer.

“Hopefully the public will support this venture and visit the car wash on Saturday 6 June. The service will be available from 9.00 am – 6.00 pm. We are also delighted to be supporting our Best Buddies partners in Ballymoney as a number of our pupils are heavily involved in Best Buddies work.